I have to say, I'm not surprised. If you didn't pass then it's obvious that the problem was at their end.

Recruiting in IT is very hard. I've been the recruiter and I know that academic qualifications are often handed to complete idiots. But if you only look at experience then you never recruit fresh and enthusiastic graduates. It's tough to know how to go about it. As a rule of thumb, 1 in 200 applicants are capable of decent levels of programming. And that's from people applying to programming jobs!